Chainalysis 2020 Cryptocurrency Adoption Index reveals that Ukraine, Russia, China, South Africa, Nigeria, and the U.S. are among the top countries for cryptocurrency adoption.
According to blockchain data analytics firm, Chainalysis, the breakdown represents one of the first attempts at a comprehensive country-level breakdown of cryptocurrency adoption.
“We wanted to do more than just report the countries trading the most cryptocurrency. Most cryptocurrency volume moved reflects trading and speculation carried out by professional or, increasingly, institutional investors moving large sums.”
The index formula used by Chainalysis was weighted to measure cryptocurrency activity while accounting for the population and economy size of each country. The findings highlight the countries where the greatest proportion of residents are more active in the cryptocurrency industry.
Nigeria was ranked 8 out of the top ten nations for cryptocurrency adoption with a score of 0.459. It received a score of 14 for on-chain value received, 7 for on-chain retail value received, 112 for number of on-chain deposits, and 3 for p2p exchange trade volume.
Kenya and South Africa were the only other African nations on the top ten list with higher rankings of 5 and 7, respectively.
Countries with very little cryptocurrency activity were ranked among the lowest:
🔵 Afghanistan
🔵 Algeria
🔵 Cape Verde
🔵 Chad
🔵 Fiji
🔵 Laos
🔵 Libya
🔵 Mongolia
🔵 Tajikistan
🔵 Turkmenistan
🔵 West Bank and Gaza
🔵 Zimbabwe
The rankings could be a surprise to many as previous reports strongly suggest that Nigeria attracts more Bitcoin interest than any country in the world. Record-high numbers in BTC transactions and Google searches make Africa’s largest economy a hotbed for cryptocurrency activity.
Chainalysis says,
“We acknowledge that there are clear limitations to this methodology, including the usage of VPNs and other products that can mask the geographic origin of web activity. However, the data that forms the trends we explore comprises millions of transactions, so this activity would need to be extremely widespread for it to meaningfully affect our data.”
Photo by iyinoluwa John Onaeko on Unsplash